Richard Porter 

This feature appeared in our London Blooms  2025 special edition celebrating spring

HE went from green fatigues to green fingers: for Richard Porter, a gardener who helps keep the “park” in Dartmouth Park, life has always been outdoors.

Before setting up his own successful gardening firm, he served for 17 years in the British Army.

Building up his firm from scratch and starting out working alone, he now gives away a free day of gardening each month with his team to people who might need an extra hand – sprucing up older people’s much-loved patch and making gardens more welcoming for families in need.

Richard’s story shows the power of horticulture: he joined up in 1984 and served until 2000.

After being demobbed, he had a spell of homelessness after his marriage broke down.

He was living in Nottingham and worked as a bus driver, and when he finished his shift each day, he’d make his way to the banks of the River Trent: using the skills he had nurtured while in the forces, he’d set up camp.

“I had been out of the army for some years but was still processing it,” he recalls.

“I found myself homeless after my marriage ended and it was a case of sink or swim.”

But his time living without a permanent address was cut short one night when a storm brought a tree down just inches from where he was sleeping.

“I was working full-time while I was homeless,” he says.

“I’d do my shift, get my bag from the locker, go to the gym, work out, have a shower and then set up my tent for the night on the banks of the Trent. I did that for seven months,” he recalls.

“When the tree came down I realised how lucky I was – inches from death. I thought, ‘Right, I have to sort this out.’”

He was left a houseboat by his mother and it gave him a new space to settle in.

He spent five happy years on the boat and then decided to quit bus driving, sell the boat and invest in setting up his gardening firm.

“I had been a skier in the army and I loved it,” he remembers.

“I thought to myself, what work can I do that will allow me to go skiing, and I thought, if I work as a gardener seven days a week for nine months of the year, I can take three months to go and live in the mountains.”

He gained qualification form the Royal Horticulture Society, sold the boat, bought a van and the tools – and Richard Porter and Sons was founded.

Originally from south London, he moved to NW5 after leaving Nottingham and now can’t see himself living or working anywhere else.

“I love the Heath – I go every day for a 6am stroll,” he says.

“It helps get my head in the right place for a day’s work.”

For seven years, Richard kept his business small, working alone and only taking on jobs he could manage without extra help, but his reputation has grown along with the plants he looks after.

He found his talent for gardening and eye for garden layout has made him the go-to in NW5.

He had to take on help to keep up.

“I have been able to focus on quite a small area for work,” he reveals.

“I work in a stretch of eight roads – four streets one way, four streets the other. I sometimes turned down work because I wasn’t confident I could fulfil it to my standard if I was working on my own – but with my current team we can. We have lots of extra and different skills. Demand was such I now employ three people – another gardener, a labourer, and a landscaper. I stand back and look each day at the work we do, and I am really quite proud of what we have achieved.”

It is all go in April – a time of the year he loves.

“Spring is a really exciting and busy time,” he says.

“I have a workshop locally and by 7am I am there to get ready, collect the tools we need and then the boys arrive at 8am and we get started, load up the van. I still work 12-hour days but it isn’t on my own anymore.”

Gardening is good for your mind and body, Richard says, something that benefits him after a physically rigorous and mentally strenuous life serving in the Army.

“I love getting my hands dirty and I love the routine through the year,” he says.

Every day comes with a list of must-dos, depending on the time of year.

“Each season has its challenges and jobs to do,” he says.

“There is an optimism about gardening – you are always looking at what will come out in the next season.

“It is such a delight gardening in the summer and spring is wonderful for the growing period. Summer, we deadhead the roses and you really see the fruits of your labour. It is wonderful to see your work come out in full bloom.

“Autumn, you see the trees slowly change colour. You know you are witnessing the changing of the season and it changes the work too – you get everything ready for bed over the winter months.”

Gardening gave Richard the chance to graft tirelessly for nine months then spend three winter months travelling.

It has given him the opportunity to see how other cultures create outdoor spaces, with journeys to Sydney’s botanical gardens, and trips across north Africa and through Italy that have all added to his deep knowledge of how a garden can be nurtured.

And working with nature means Richard concentrates on how his work can impact on the environment.

“Firstly, we aim to be completely green,” he says.

“I use a cargo bike for many of our jobs and have an EV van for the bigger ones. We changed our tools from petrol to battery-powered ones.”

Working in a set of streets means he gets to know the soil, the shade, the journey of the sun across the sky and how it impacts on the gardens he nurtures.

His knowledge of tending a north London back garden has grown as his business has expanded.

“Ferns do really well – Victorian gardens can be quite enclosed and shady but we also look for colour, too.”

He has his favourites.

“I love the euphorbia plant, and there are 3,000 types to choose from. But it is always about the customer’s taste – knowing what they want, making suggestions if they don’t , and helping guide them.”

And making sure gardens are designed with the climate crisis in mind is vital, he adds.

Tastes develop and so does the need to move away from some of the traditional ideas of an English garden.

“For example, having a little bit of lawn in the garden is great, “ he says.

“But there are always places on a lawn that you can do more with – plant different types of grasses and bulbs. People like to plant crocuses, sedum, tulips in their lawns and they pop up in Spring and then you don’t mow until it’s time. It is glorious. Lots of people do no-mow-May nowadays and that encourages pollinators.

“We like to create areas that are more wild. We make spaces that encourage wildlife – hedgehogs, bees, birds.”

Seeing one of Richard’s gardens this time of year is a feast for the senses, with a range of colours, shades and of course the scent of spring flowers.

“Flowerbeds evolve as you look after them but of course the customer can choose flowers and shrubs.”

And Richard and his team love the sense of satisfaction when they step up to help out someone who needs their garden given some care but can’t afford a gardener.

“We always look forward to giving a day’s work away each month to someone who needs a hand in their garden.

“We love it when someone nominates a neighbour to have their garden spaced up by us for free – it’s about giving something back and being good neighbours.

“We like to help someone in need by making their garden beautiful. This is a community that has been so kind to me and helped me set up this business, so it’s great to be able to give something back.”